


Tonight, I'm Gonna Party Like It's 1989 (in Denmark)

by Thette



Series: Mick and Len's Nordic Adventures [2]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Marriage, Minor Injuries, No Sex, Pre-Canon, Tongue Twisters, actually registered partnership instead of marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 19:59:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15803556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thette/pseuds/Thette
Summary: This is a story about the time when young Len and Mick went underground in the Danish commune Freetown Christiania, and what it means to be partners.Based onthis Tumblr post: "if the next big fanfic trope isn’t ‘we had a maybe-fake-maybe-not marriage 26 years ago and i just realized that we never bothered to check if it was legally binding’ i’m suing all of you"





	Tonight, I'm Gonna Party Like It's 1989 (in Denmark)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SophiaCatherine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/gifts).



> Just a little something written for SophiaCatherine. Not beta read.

### 1989, Freetown Christiania, Denmark

"Not sure about this, Mick. We'll be working harder here with the community projects than we would be if we just got an apartment in the suburbs and lay low for a few months."

Len picked up a hammer, and turned it over in his hands. He was not a handy person. Mick, however, seemed to do just fine with repairing the nineteenth century military barracks. He and three other men, overwintered hippies from the look of it, were insulating a former storage shed where a seventy year old woman lived, after she had been hospitalized for pneumonia.

Mick grunted in reply, joint hanging from the corner of his mouth. The anarchistic drug and alcohol trade had been the selling points for Mick, and the fact that the community always kept watch for police. Any time a raid came through, which was often, they had at least five minutes of warning. Besides, the cops were trying to catch cannabis dealers, and not on the lookout for semi-famous criminals, who were not even wanted in this jurisdiction.

"Fine," Len said, walking off to find the young woman trying and failing to install electrical heating. "You're gonna burn the house down," he told her. "Let me."

Two hours later, he shared a beer on the cafe patio with the same young woman, relaxing under a graffiti mural. She was called Lise, and was delighted to know he had a sister with almost the same name. Her English had only a bit of the Danish tendency to swallow half the word, and he understood her perfectly, which was a relief. He was good at languages, but picking up Danish was a challenge.

"Try it!" she said, giggling drunkenly. "Say 'rødgrød med fløde'!"

He tried, he really did, to the amusement of the locals. He could see Mick working in the back yard with the old man, known only as Peder, tending to the vegetable garden. If Len hadn't known he grew up on a farm, that would have been unexpected. Shocking, really. But Mick had a green thumb, and he was good with tools, and that seemed to be enough for these Danish hippies to accept them both.

"You know," Lise said, leaning in conspiratorially, "you can get married here. They call it 'partnerskab.' I know it won't help you back home, but it's something, right?"

He tilted his head, looking at her. They had given a sad, but not entirely untrue, cover story about homophobia in the American midwest, and needing to get away, and the Danes were more than happy to believe them and show off how accepting they were.

"One day, maybe," he said, watching Mick communicate in Danish just as well as he did in English, using only grunts and scoffs. "One day."

### Outside of time and space, The Waverider, 28 years later personal time

"Mr Snart," Gideon greeted him. "Your partner is in the med bay. A full recovery is expected."

Len struck the wall, frustrated that Mick had gotten himself hurt, and relieved that Gideon had helped in time. The cold metal against the side of his hand helped him cool down, pun fully intended. He allowed himself one harsh breath, and pushed his emotions down again.

Mick was sleeping, looking so young and vulnerable. Len took his hand, kissing it gently.

"Oh," he heard, from somewhere in the direction of the med bay door.

"What is it, Boy Scout?" he asked with clipped tones, without looking up.

"I just… I've been wondering what you two mean when you call each other partner, and, well…"

He rolled his eyes at Ray's ramblings. "Partners in crime. Life partners. Registered partners, even, though I'm not sure about the actual legal status."

"You and Mr Rory are registered partners in Denmark. Since 2012, you have the option to change the partnership into a marriage, if you prefer, by contacting the Danish authorities."

"Don't know," Len said, tilting his head and looking at his partner. He stroked Mick's hand. "I like being partners."

### 1991, Copenhagen, Denmark

"Congratulations!" Lise yelled, hugging them both. They couldn't object, not now, not when they had stepped out from the City Hall, registered partners for all of Denmark to see. Mick's arm was warm around his waist. Peder, their second witness, clapped their shoulders and went to unlock his bike, already on the way back to Christiania. The city made him uncomfortable.

"I have a present for you, Lise," Len said with a smirk.

"Shouldn't it be the other way around?" she asked.

"You'd better feed us your mother's chicken stew when we get back home," Mick said. Lise's mother's chicken stew was tender, delicious and warming, and Len couldn't wait to get to their wedding dinner back home.

"Fem flade flødeboller på et fladt flødebollefad," Len intoned, in perfect Danish, and Lise squealed with joy. Mick brought him in for a kiss, a rare treat when they were in public, and Len couldn't resist deepening it.

Lise took pictures with her disposable camera. "Okay," she said after eighty-seven seconds. "Save it for the wedding night."

**Author's Note:**

> [Danish partnership law, the first nationally legally recognized partnerships in modern times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Denmark), required two years of residence before non-citizens were allowed to register. The law went into effect in 1989, and in 2012, a gender neutral marriage law was passed. Post-2012, no new partnerships are registered, and existing partnerships can be converted to marriages. 
> 
> Would you look at that, the [NYT had an article about Christiania published today](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/world/europe/christiania-freetown-copenhagen.html)! That was not the reason I wrote this.
> 
>  
> 
> [Danish tongue twisters, including "rødgrød med fløde" and "fem flade flødeboller på et fladt flødebollefad."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jdYVAOQ3y4)


End file.
